Tapestry to be housed at Borders Railway station

First Minister Alex Salmond with the Great Tapestry of Scotland. Picture: JP

ALASTAIR DALTON

STEAM trains and a home for the Great Tapestry of Scotland to maximise the tourist potential of the Borders Railway were announced today by Alex Salmond.

The First Minister also revealed the line would open on 6 September 2015.

He said steam trains would operate from that month, and would be followed by a “significant expansion” when a visitor centre for the tapestry opens in the new Tweedbank station at the end of the line in 2016.

The 143-metre-long (480ft) artwork is the world’s longest embroidered tapestry, which tells the story of Scotland in 160 panels from the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 to the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.

Mr Salmond said a feasibility study led by Scottish Enterprise would examine how the 35-mile railway between Edinburgh and Tweedbank, south of Galashiels, could transform the region’s tourist potential.

A turntable for locomotives could be another possible visitor draw after the £350 million route opens after a gap of 46 years.

A new path will improve access to the Scottish Mining Museum from Newtongrange station.

The First Minister said: “For commuters and tourists alike, the re-opened line will provide opportunities to enjoy the many fantastic attractions and experiences on offer in the Borders.

“There will be few railway journeys anywhere in Europe to match the outstanding scenery along the route of the new Borders Railway.

“I have no doubt that the Borders Railway will be profoundly successful, and I will be one of the first in line for a ticket when the trains are running in September next year.”

Scottish Borders Council leader David Parker said: “Having the Great Tapestry of Scotland situated at the Tweedbank terminus telling the 420 million year history of Scotland is something that will be very special indeed.

“A great many people will take the ‘Train to the Tapestry’ and also visit the Borders and our many other attractions.”

Alistair Moffat, co-chairman of the Great Tapestry of Scotland trustees, said:

“It is very fitting and satisfying that a work of art that has been made all over Scotland, stitched by a thousand Scots, should come back home to the Borders, the place where Scotland’s textile industry saw its fullest flowering.”

Other measures include lengthening Galashiels station’s platform to accommodate longer tourist trains, following a similar move at Tweedbank after lobbying by campaigners.

Campaign for Borders Rail chairman Simon Walton said: “It’s gratifying so many recommendations made by the campaign are being actively discussed, although I would have hoped for some greater acknowledgement of our efforts, and recourse to our body of expertise.”

“I hope we’ll see the line established as a through route, carrying long distance trains between Edinburgh, the Borders, Carlisle and beyond.

“We would urge that the First Minister’s feasibility studies announcement be extended in scope to examine these benefits too.”

David Spaven, author of Waverley Route - the life, death and rebirth of the Borders Railway, said: “A key tourism issue which has still to be sorted out is how the charter trains will be accommodated within the limited single-track infrastructure being provided by Transport Scotland.

“With no spare ‘paths’ for charters over and above the half-hourly ScotRail service, other than in the evenings and on Sundays – and the length of double track cut back from 16 to 9½ miles – it will need a lot of ingenuity to properly accommodate tourist charter demand on the Borders Railway.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.